But ERD50, you are old enough to know that we never know what life will bring. For example it was not due to my virtuous scrimping and saving that my house was not destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, while many of my friends' homes and about one third of my co-workers' homes were destroyed. Many are still battling with their insurance companies in court. Others settled for pennies on the dollar compared with their losses and what they thought they would have received. My former supervisor lost her home, couldn't find a rental (a real problem for many after the storm), and so bought a second home to live in while getting her first home rebuilt. Now she has TWO homes sucking up her money and losing value in this market, not to mention two kids in college and construction loans to pay off. Ewww. I wonder what I would have done had that been me. Sleep in my car, and shower at the gym, I suppose. But she had a husband and two teenagers to house. And both of us were lucky that we still had a job.
There are also many who lost nearly everything in the market crash. That could have been me, had I not come across the M* Diehards board from where I first heard of this [-]group of jokers[/-] message board and from which the Bogleheads' board arose. I was lucky to have come across the Bogleheads and to have listened to their investment approach in formulating my own. Look at the investment book section at B&N the next time you are there. There are some really scary books advocating investment strategies that would give a Boglehead nightmares.
Others face the financial ruin and nightmare that we call "divorce". Been there, done that, and lost everything (but thank goodness I was only 50 so I had a decade to recover financially). Some marriages just crater and often there is nothing one can do to predict that or to save them.
Some have kids that are disabled and I understand that can be expensive as well.
You never know what life will bring. There but for the grace of G** go I.
